Chapter 4 - The Sound of Music
Two weeks passed like a slow-burning fuse.
The carriage house on the north side of the estate had been transformed. Rosa had seen to it that the drafty windows were sealed, a thick wool rug was laid across the wooden floors, and a small chest of drawers was stocked with warm clothes for Lily. For the first time in two years, Hannah Carter slept without worrying that the ceiling would leak when it rained, or that the rats in the basement would wake her daughter.
In exchange, Hannah worked tirelessly, keeping the main house spotless, though she rarely crossed paths with Lucas Moretti.
Except for the evenings.
Every evening around 6:00 PM, Lucas would find an excuse to walk past the north gardens. He would see Lily sitting on the porch with her pink inhaler nearby, coloring in a thick book of fairy tales, while Hannah brought out a tray of lemonade.
And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the Moretti estate began to change.
The locked door to Isabella’s sunroom was no longer locked.
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, while the rest of the staff was busy in the west wing, Lucas walked down the second-floor corridor, carrying a heavy brass key he hadn't used in thirty-six months. He slid it into the lock. The tumblers clicked with a heavy, rusted groan.
He pushed the door open.
Dust motes danced in the pale grey light filtering through the tall glass windows. In the center of the room sat the mahogany baby grand piano, covered in a white linen sheet.
Lucas walked over, his boots clicking softly against the parquet floor. He pulled the sheet away. The polished wood gleamed beneath the grime.
He hadn't touched the keys since the morning before the bridge.
Slowly, hesitantly, Lucas lifted the fallboard. The ivory keys stared back at him like rows of bleached teeth. With a trembling hand, he pressed a single middle C.
The note rang out through the empty room, pure and resonant, hanging in the damp air before fading into silence.
Suddenly, a soft rustle at the doorway made him spin around.
Lily stood in the doorway, holding Mr. Ears. She was wearing a yellow raincoat and rubber duck rain boots. She had wandered up the main staircase while her mother was busy in the laundry room.
“Is that a music box?” Lily asked, her eyes wide as she stepped into the forbidden sunroom.
Lucas let out a breath that sounded like a dry laugh. “No, Lily. It’s a piano.”
“My mama plays the radio in the kitchen sometimes,” Lily said, walking right up to the side of the instrument, running her small fingers along the polished mahogany. “She used to play songs on the church piano before daddy got sick. Can you play a song, Mister Lucas?”
Lucas looked down at the keys, then down at the little girl who had brought him back from the dead.
“I don't know if I remember how,” Lucas whispered.
“My mama says if you forget how to do something, you just have to try three times,” Lily declared with the absolute, unshakeable wisdom of a six-year-old. “Like my breathing. First time no air, second time no air, third time air comes back.”
Lucas stared at her. A profound, aching warmth bloomed in his chest—a feeling so foreign he almost didn't recognize it as hope.
He sat down on the piano bench. The wood was cold beneath him.
He closed his eyes, inhaling the faint scent of lemon wax and old dust. He placed his fingers over the keys—not with the aggressive authority he used to sign contracts or order hits, but with the fragile, halting touch of a man touching something holy.
And then, he began to play.
It was a simple melody—a lullaby Isabella used to play for Daniel when he had nightmares about thunderstorms. The notes were clumsy at first, his fingers stiff from years of gripping guns and steering wheels. But as the rhythm took hold, the music flowed out of him, filling the sunroom, spilling out into the hallway, and echoing down the grand staircase of the Moretti mansion for the first time in three years.
Downstairs in the foyer, Hannah Carter froze, a basket of freshly folded linens clutched to her chest. She listened to the music, her eyes filling with tears as she realized the iron cage around the master of the house was finally melting away.
Unknown to any of them, standing just outside the front gates of the estate, a black sedan idled in the rain.
May you like
Victor Romano sat in the passenger seat, staring up at the lighted windows of the second-floor sunroom, his phone pressed to his ear.
“Yeah, I hear it,” Victor snarled into the phone, his face twisted into an ugly mask of rage. “He’s playing the piano. The bastard is coming back to life. If he opens those financial audits from three years ago, we’re both dead men. We move tonight.”
